Social Psychology Essay

We start by defining both the term and the concept of social psychology. Social psychology is the study of how the conscious and unconscious mind interacts to influence our behaviors, emotions, and thought processes. The concept of social psychology allows us to understand how people react when there is an actual or implied presence of another individual and/or group. Society has a large influence over human behavior. Things such as peer pressure along with parental influences, in-group versus out-group bias, group dynamics, and the implied and/or actual presence of personal principles play a large role in how one functions in everyday life. Each of these moving factors according to Marcus Aurelius are merely stepping-stones to the path

People have their own judgments of thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. An example of a self-schema could be a person who classifies themselves by certain descriptions such as being liberal, Catholic, an artist, a dog person, intelligent; the list continues on. This is what helps us define ourselves from the group; our self-concepts are what help us create our own identity separate from the society that shapes us. Reading into books nine through eleven in the book of Meditations the author declares, “He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself bad” (book, ?). We can take this to mean like social psychology that individuals have self-schemas and that ultimately only the person(s) themselves can be held accountable for their decisions and not blame others for how they were brought up. Each person can decide how their life turns out if they are, “…moderate, sincere, honest, and calm” (book, ?). We must be willing to take the consequences that come with positive or negative outcomes even if that means we do not get immediate gratification and more so if things do not turn out they way we imagined they would. In this case we must rely on our own imagined presence of others to drive us to be the ‘best’ person ultimately we can become as

Through the onset of peer pressure and family relations we see how these influence individuals into making certain decisions and acting in a way that will suit others. Meditations explains how even though it would be normal to want to follow our in-group that we must be able to break free of those confines that tie us down and become our own independent persons. It goes on to explain in a broad sense of group dynamics how our social norms and relations can cause individuals to sway in their own personal thoughts and feelings. An example of this would be discussing political preferences among friends and family. A person could change their own views based on what their family believes in and tells them about certain parties as they are growing up; this sways them to assimilate into group beliefs despite their own in order to blend in without any complications. This concept is not limited to family, but more common amongst peer groups and friendships. A good example would be when one wants to smoothly integrate into their desired group. Said group could have a political standpoint of conservatism while the individual’s personal views are liberal. To merge into the faction, they could state that their political party is the same as their peers, thus eventually altering their claims to being conservative. In “The Need to Belong can Motivate