The Three Faces Of Social Psychology

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Social psychology is a branch of psychology that deals with social interactions, and the effects on the individual. It is "The scientific investigation of how people's thoughts, feelings and behavior are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others." (Carmen Grillo, September 19) Social psychology has three faces, these three faces being its central objects of inquiry.
The first face is psychological social psychology (PSP), which focuses on individual psychological processes in relation to society and social stimuli. It emphasizes inputs (the information/signals received) and outputs (the information/signals sent out). This branch uses experimental methods for data collection, therefore a hypothesis is created and then tested (scientific). Social structure personality (SSP) focuses on how social structures shape personality and it "breaks down personality into beliefs, attitudes, and more in terms of roles they play in society." (September 19) This branch tends to use the survey method to link macro features to the individual level. Finally, the third face is symbolic interactionism (SI). SI is concerned with "how thinking is translated into behavior" and how individuals give meanings to objects and actions based on interpretations of their surroundings. It emphasized …show more content…

The social self is a term that describes "humans can reflect on their life, on their appearance, on their feelings and make decisions based on that reflection" (Grillo, principles of SI). Humans have the ability to self-reflect and to take the role on the other – meaning they can see themselves through someone else's eyes. Mead stated that we form minds and selves through the process of communication and role taking and "we develop the capacity to see and respond to ourselves as objects" (book page 11), thus we have the ability to make choices and formulate our

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