Social Psychology

Definition:

Social psychology is the ‘scientific investigation of how thoughts, feelings and behaviours of the individual are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others’.

Social psychology looks at a wide range of social topics, including group behavior, social perception, leadership, nonverbal behavior, conformity, aggression, and prejudice.

Social psychologists therefore deal with the factors that lead us to behave in a given way in the presence of others, and look at the conditions under which certain behavior/actions and feelings occur.

Social psychology is concerned with the way these feelings, thoughts, beliefs, intentions and goals are constructed and how such psychological factors, in turn, influence our interactions with others.

History:

1897 – Norman Triplett publishes the first scientific study of social behavior, on a topic that was later called ‘social facilitation’.

Late 1890’s - Max Ringelmann discovered the opposite. He found that in the group situation individuals did not exert as much force as when working alone, a term now referred to as ‘social loafing’.

1908 –Sociologist Edward Ross published a textbook introducing social psychology within sociology.

1920 – Willy Helpach founded the first institute for Social Psychology in Germany.

1923 - Gardner Murphy defined social psychology as an experimental discipline, which separated social psychology from the naturalistic observational techniques used in sociology.

1924 – Floyd Allport publishes the 3rd Social psychology text. The book became widely used in social psychology classes at American universities.

1934 - La Pierre fueled the importance of understanding the complexity between human behaviour and attitude.

1954 - Leon Festinger founded the social comparison theory and cognitive dissonance.