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Importance of social psychology
Relevance of social psychology in our daily life experiences
Importance of social psychology in society
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Throughout a functioning society, individuals are expected to follow various societal norms, in order to maintain a certain amount of social order. Social Psychology works to define, explain, and illustrate what is now known as social norms on an individualistic level, as well as a group level. Social Psychologists have the ability to bring understanding and clarification to beliefs that may have been misconstrued, stereotypes, and the terms used to describe the effects that social psychology has on one’s self. Social Psychology is not limited to one individual, or group, but rather is viewed from both a micro and macro level, allowing for distinctions on an individual level, along with the impact of groups and group settings. Human Cooperation …show more content…
Defining the Importance of Human Cooperation Hand in Hand with Direct and Indirect Reciprocity Various questions arise from academic texts concerning the reasoning behind human cooperation, as the questions center on why individuals wish to defy what is compared to natural selection, by compromising ultimately to assist another individual, or group to succeed, or survive. However, society and societal norms encourage human cooperation, in order to ensure social order to some capacity when viewing the population as a whole. The term, reciprocity, which is directly associated with human cooperation, refers to the concept of exchanging something which will ultimately benefit another individual, social group, or country depending on the particular situation. Direct reciprocity is the idea that individuals who have continuous encounters with one another are more likely to demonstrate a greater amount of human …show more content…
Social Interactions and Intentions are directly associated with human cooperation, due to the ways in which individuals interact with each other. One’s appearance, tone of voice, hand gestures, and other forms of bodily movements are able to indicate the social intentions of an individual, and whether or not they are demonstrating cooperative or competitive behavior. A study conducted by Manera et al. (2011) works to measure the direct association between social interactions, intentions, and cooperation versus competition with the use of a reach-to-grasp movement task and point-light task. Throughout the study, subjects were asked to view a series of videos, in which individuals were performing a task with wooden blocks. The tasks ranged from hand movements which demonstrated cooperation with another individual, in order to successfully create a tower from the blocks, hand movements which insinuated competition with another individual to reach a common outcome with the blocks, and the performance of an individual action with the wooden blocks. Following the viewing of the films, participants were asked to identify and replicate the tasks presented in the videos. The results of the study demonstrate significance when individuals were
Social psychology is an empirical science that studies how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. This field focuses on how individuals view and affect each other. Social psychology also produces the idea of construals which represent how a person perceives, comprehends or interprets the environment. Construals introduce the idea that people want to make themselves look good to others and they want to be seen as right. It is also said that the social setting in which people interact impacts behavior, which brings up the idea of behaviorism. Behaviorism is the idea that behavior is a function of the person and the environment.
Socialization occurs within this perspective, individuals learn the rules of a group, as this theory highlights all members of society has a role to play. Social class is not an issue with this theory although value and ethic’s consensus is essential for effective functioning within society.
Cooperation played a major role in the development of homo sapiens as the dominant species on earth. Americans do not understand its importance. It is understandable to place an extremely high level of importance upon self reliance in a dog eat dog society, but individualism has become fear and loathing of others. This motivates people to develop ways they can spend less time with each other. The ultimate expression of individualism, driving a car, illustrates the problem of denying “the reality of human interdependence” (30). “Some people can’t afford to heat their homes because we all want to ride expensive vehicles on crowded roads at high speeds, killing one another and polluting the atmosphere” (2). This situation cannot be repaired until we accept the inherent power in cooperation. “The more we try to solve our problems by increasing personal autonomy, the more we find ourselves at the mercy of these mysterious, impersonal, and remote mechanisms that we have ourselves created” (48).
For the purpose of this essay, this writer will define reciprocity as the expectation or ‘norm’ that people will respond to another party in the same manner in which the other party has treated them. So, for practical purposes, this means rewarding a good deed with another good deed, and punishing a bad deed with another bad deed. Of course, in order for a system like this to produce a favorable outcome, both groups must start out with good deeds, otherwise the system will only lead to relatively permanent hostilities.
My attention was also drawn to several questions in this podcast, which made me eager to find the answers to these questions. For example, one interesting question I heard was “when you do see generosity how do you know it’s really generous” (Levy, 2010). This question stood out to me because it is one particular question I don’t think about often and made me wonder whether people help someone out because they see it as a duty. However, I believe the best answer to this question is the portrayal of the concept of norm of reciprocity, which indicates “the expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future” (Akert, Aronson, & Wilson, 2013, p.303). This is true because “generosity” happens when both persons are nice to each other and if an individual helps another person then it’s easy to assume that the person who was
The main focus of this research proposal is to address the study of social psychology and the role it plays in helping one understand human social behavior. In this proposal, one will attempt to explain how the field of social psychology will evolve within the next 10 years. Allport, (1985) maintains that social psychology is the scientific study that seeks to understand the nature of individual’s behavior and how they think, feel, and are influenced by others. To understand the framework of this proposal, one will focus on human social behavior as it relates to research in social psychology.
The most basic concept in social psychology is conformity. Conformity is the idea that behaviour or a belief is changed in order to follow, or conform, to what is considered the “norm.” One of the oldest experiments to support this notion was conducted in 1935 by Muzafer Sherif (Song, Ma, Wu, Li, 2012 p. 1366). There are two different types of
Social psychology is defined as the study of the relationships between people, their community and their environment (King, 2011). People tend to conform to society to feel accepted. However, their circumstances play a role in their capability to conform. For example, people are inclined to wear specific attire to the gym. The typical workout outfit is gym shorts, a t-shirt, and running sneakers, and typically, females put their hair up in a ponytail holder. Wearing anything other than these articles of clothing is abnormal and breaks the social norm.
Social psychology is an empirical science that studies how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. This field focuses on how individuals view and affect one another. Social psychology also produces the idea of construals which represent how a person perceives, comprehends or interprets the environment. Construals introduce the idea that people want to make themselves look good to others and they want to be seen as right. It is also said that the social setting in which people interact impacts behavior, which brings up the idea of behaviorism. Behaviorism is the idea that behavior is a function of the person and the environment.
“Social conformity has been practiced in societies around the world since ancient times,” and the reason it is so effective is that humans have an inherent need to be accepted as part of a group (Sadat). Furthermore, Hossna Sadat reports that:
Cultures that favor generous, supportive and cooperative behavior promote these responses by reinforcing prosocial behavior. People who are cooperative are also more likely to come to the aid of people in distress. Several of the factors that promote cooperation such as personally adjustment, cognitive level, imitation, and cultural background also affect generosity and helpfulness.
Social Psychology is the study of social behavior such as people’s thoughts, feelings, behaviors in certain social situations (Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., Akert, R. M., & Sommers, S., 2015). There are many concepts and principles in this field, specifically in social influence, which was talked about in chapter 8. Social influence is a part of everyday life and in one way or form everyone takes part in it. The literal definition of social influence is the result of words, mere presence, or actions that other people can
Gintis, Herbert, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ermst Fehr. “Explaining Altruistic Behavior in Humans.” Evolution and Human Behavior 24 (2003): 153-172. Web. 5 Feb. 2012
Reciprocity is symbolic of creating, maintaining, or strengthening social relationships as well as satisfying the material needs and wants of someone in need. It refers to the exchange of objects without the use of money or other media of exchange. It can take the form of sharing, hospitality, gifts, or bartering. Anthropologists identify three forms of reciprocity.
Social psychology essentially became the focus on the individual rather than the group as a whole. Many thoughtful ideas are collected in response to the studies of social psychology. Human cognition is understood to arise from interacting socially, highlighting the importance of socialization. We use social cognition to develop our explanations and our ideas on why a person’s behavior is/does what it is/does. As explained in class, we may have a student who never completes assignments and from that viewpoint, we determine that the student is a lazy person and more than likely does not care about the class.