Social psychology is the
scientific study of human emotion, thinking and behavior that we perform or
effected by the others or how we feel about, think about and behave with others
while living in the society which shows its holistic importance in our daily day
routine, social psychology explain us that how a person implement these three
aspects while performing any social interaction in the society. Social
psychologists understand the dynamics of our social relations to provide us
better way to build our attitude in positive manner.
History and principles of Social psychology
Social psychology began with the systematic and formal measurement of human
thoughts, feeling and behavior, the first social psychology textbook was
published in 1908, latter on some social psychologists like ‘Kurt Lewin’ and
‘Leon Festinger‘ contribute their excellence towards the progress od the field,
like working on dynamicinteraction of people to make social psychology as a
scientific discipline. In 1954, Festinger edited a book named as ‘research
method in behavioral sciences’in which he and his fellow researchers focus the
different variables and laboratory experiments in systematic way to test
hypothesis regarding social behavior. There are many usefull experiments held by
the researchers era that flourished the discipline of social psychology like a
research conduct to understand that, how German dictator ‘Adolf Hitler’ produced
such intense obedient behaviour in his soldiers to perform abhorrent acts during
world war two, which shows that, authority create obedience behavior that
motivates people to perform any act ordered by the authority, experiment named
as ‘prison study’ performed by Banks and Zimbardo on college students as
prisoners and guards also determine the influence of authority on the concept of
obedience. Social psychologists explain the human thinking and behavior in
certain circumstances that, how people interact with each other while having
different attitudes. Advancement in cognitive psychology through computer
technology play vital role towards the exploration of the fieldwhich leads
social psychology towardsmore comparative status, in recent years social
psychologists are serving to design anti-violence programs in diversified
situations.We interact with each other in the society while having different
individual characteristics based on traits, desires, motivation and emotions,
these attributes are influenced by the social situation in which we express our
behaviors. We, as humans have same characteristics because of universally shaped
through the natural processofevolution, genetic code provide the specialized
skills which help us for better survival in the society. Our evolutionary
adaptation supports us to develop our social behavior according to the situation
for having particular characteristics.
The most important tendency as living organisms is to keep our self-enhanced,
maintained and alive for getting the best possible survival and to achieve
certain fundamental goals, we put our full effort despite focusing others
domain. E.g. our politicians just focus about their self-concern to live full
luxurious life without thinking of others.When you are motivated to help others
without having any self-benefit, in this form people has a aim to facilitate
others and think for collective benefits while performing any social activity at
societal level. In this case we do not put our-self first, we encourage the
representation of all individuals on collective basisby refusing
selfishbehaviors e.g. What Muhammd Ali Jinnah done for the nation; show his
others concern to unite people and get a separate land for theMuslims of
sub-continent despite of his one self-interest.In the discussion of self and
others concern, it is very important to discuss the social situation that
motivate the behavior of individuals to adopt self-concern or others-concern,
these both attributes can be happened together e.g. A cricket player behave in
such manner that protect his individual performance and also motivate his
batting partner because at the end if they both performed well, their teams will
win and their individual performances will also be appreciated. Social
psychology is also called the interplay of social situation, self-concern and
others-concern.
Different Cultures has different norms
The nexus of customs, traditions, standards and rules and general values of the
group is known as ‘Culture’that makes a collective pattern for all the members
of any particular group to follow that pattern, cultures differ in terms of
norms, norms are the identity of any society that describes certain rules to
guide our social behavior. Due to difference in cultures, norms have its
modifications on the basis of geographical differences, like Chinese has
different traditional valuesand Canadians has some other traditional values that
they follow, in western countries like Britain, Franceand Germany, people
promotes the individual living style,whereas in eastern countries like Pakistan
and India people prefer collective living style which shows the difference of
adopting norms in these two different regions that also depicts the difference
to develop any social behaviors. Sometimes, an individual has his/her influence
on the society like General Raheel Sharif creates his own impression on
Pakistani society, people motivate his actions and support him in intense way,
that change happened due to a single individual that develop social norm in the
society to think, behave and feel about army man in such a expressive manner.
Asas we conclude we can say that Social psychology; as a scientific study
guiding us, how to feel, think and behave in the society while interacting
others, how to develop your attitude according to the situation and how to
express your concern that also complement others concern while living in
heterogeneous environment.