Template:Tutorial 1 - what is Social Psychology?

Some brief definitions about what Social Psychology is:

• According to Baumeister & Bushman (2008) "Social Psychology is a branch of psychology that seeks a broad understanding of how human beings think, act, and feel"
• Social psychology is the study of how people and groups interact - Wikipedia
• Social Psychology examines interactions of individual psychology and group phenomena; examines the influence of real or imagined others on the way people behave (Westen, Burton & Kowalski, 2008).
• Answers.com defines social psychology as "The branch of human psychology that deals with the behavior of groups and the influence of social factors on the individual."
• Thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals are influenced by actual imagined or implied presence of others (Gordon Allport)

I believe social psychology incorporates aspects of sociology as well as psychology. It is a complex field because of the broad variety of aspects it involves. Social psychology examines the individual, as well as groups, in terms of how they interact with society. It is a dynamic relationship between an individual/group and society each facet influencing one another. Some interesting ideas explored in the lecture and tutorial were:

• ABC the triad in social psychology stands for: Affect=how people feel inside, Behavior=peoples actions and Cognition= what people think.
• Social Influence which is behaviors and attitudes brought about by others
• Social Interaction: How people interact with one another in the social world.
• Social Perception: Hoe we interpret social objects.
• The Person vs. Situation debate: is a person influenced primarily by the situation/environment or their biology (NB: this is very similar to the nature vs. nurture debate)

The Person vs. Situation debate is about what influences behavior. In the tutorial we participated in an exercise placing students along a spectrum to see whether they were more inclined to either side. I personally sit somewhere in the middle. Although i believe certain characteristics, such as personality traits, can be genetic (This has been illustrated by Twins studies exclusively). Although there has been no conclusive evidence for a 100% match in personality traits in identical twins. This leaves room for an environmental influence. Although their are a lot of studies regarding this issue, i think that more mapping of the genome (a DNA map) which identifies specific genes for specific things could shed more light on this issue. Although humans are not pre-programmed zombies. Experience and our environment also shape our behavior and thoughts significantly. I don't think this debate can ever be fully resolved, although it proper gates interesting research which i think can be more rewarding than a resolution.

This weeks topics also included research method and history, although there is no need to regurgitate boring and mundane information....i'll save that for the exam. A more interesting aspect of this weeks topic was about culture and nature. The key premise of social psychology is to seek answers for the question how do people think, feel and act? In regard to nature approach to answering these questions scientists examine genes, hormones, brain structure and physiology. Scientists and psychologists from this persuasion generally use the evolutionary theory to explain behavior. Darwin's theory of 'natural selection' investigates traits that increase an animals survival. Culture on the other hand focuses on how environmental factors, such as society and community, can shape peoples thoughts, feelings and actions. ‘ Culture is an information based system, involving both shared understandings and praxis (practical way of doing things), that allows groups of people to live together in an organised fashion and to satisfy their biological and other needs.’ (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008) Cultural influences can be:

• Parents, society/community and experience
• Shared things/beliefs i.e. food, language, style of government/shared ideas and meanings which can be defined in language.

In this weeks tutorial we did a number of exercises which classified people into groups. To begin with it was generally factual categorization (eye colour, where you were born etc). Then we formed groups based of beliefs i.e. political or religious. It was interesting to see how the groups were formed and what demographic was in each group. I found it easy to get along with people in each group, probably because of our similarity that put us there in the first place. I am interested to learn more about what drives humans towards certain beliefs and behaviors, how people form groups and make social connections.