Social Psychology

Definition / Field / Theories:

Definition:
An attempt to understand and explain how the
thoughts, feelings, and behavior of individuals are
influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of
others (Allport, 1968).

Its focus is primarily on the processes of social

influence.
It is to study the relationship between social
institutions, social groups, and individual behavior.
Field:
Social psychology is the pragmatic tradition of seeking rational
answers to problems created by industrial revolution in modern
societies.
Problems such as:
Labor - Employer Conflict
Racial conflict, war, Crime, Economic depression, cold war, urban rioting,
student protest, civil disobedience and atomic threat, poverty, discrimination,
crime, mental illness, drug abuse, and child abuse.
Social psychology helps understand the causes of above stated problems and
how to cope with them.
Theories:
Social psychology as a science tries to understand the social
behavior of individuals by discovering the elements of behavior.
Information about the circumstances in which a particular behavior
occurs or why it occurs can be used to predict or control the
behavior.
Major Theoretical Approaches:
a. Psychoanalytic Theory
b. Social learning Theory
c. Cognitive Theory

Psychoanalytic Theory: Emerged out of the work of Sigmund Freud (1896 - 1939)
. Freud identifies the following basic psychoanalytic principles of human behavior.
1. Every individual has a given amount of vital psychic or mental energy called libido energy.
2. The Libido energy and various channels through which it is expressed are of utmost
importance to personality development.
3. Perceives mind as divided into two:
a. Conscious Mind
b. Unconscious Mind
c. Human mind is like an Ice berg
4. Conscious Mind: Individual is aware of it. Information can be recalled form memory. Is smaller
than unconscious.
5. Unconscious mind consists of: Desires, Emotions, Instincts and knowledge of which a person is
not aware of yet it has an influence on his/her behavior.
Free association, dream analysis, hypnosis, subjective tests are some techniques to dig out
for information.
Structure of Personality:
Personality is the interaction between three components:
a. Id: Present at birth. Original component of personality. Source of psychic energy such
as libido, instincts and drives. Is blind and works on pleasure principle.
b. Ego: Comes into existence to deal with reality and works on reality principle.
c. Super Ego: Internal representation of society. Operates on perfection principle.
Includes conscience and ego ideal. Like Id is non rational and is opposed to both Id
and Ego. Enforces its authority through punishment and reward.
d. Ego is responsible to balance demands of Id and Super Ego

Defense Mechanism:
Job of Ego is to reconcile irreconcilable. For the purpose, some times, it
activates defense mechanism.
1. Repression: Shifting of painful ideas, memories, perceptions, from conscious to un
conscious mind.
2. Projection: Attributing ones unacceptable traits to another person / group.
3. Reaction Formation: Extreme hate into extreme love. Immorality into morality.
4. Sublimation: Channeling unacceptable impulses, drives into acceptable alternatives.
Example: Sex drives into hard hitting football match.
5. Denial: Simply denying threatening impulses, drives or events.
Stages of personality development:
Sigmund Freud contented that personality progresses through different stages
related to psychosexual development and at every stage it focuses on various
zones or regions of the body.
1. The Oral Stage: occurs during the first year and primary zone of pleasure
is mouth. It is brief but important in development of trust in other people
and has a lasting influence on ones level of social relationship.
Fixation at this stage causes thumb sucking, excessive gum chewing,
smoking or over eating.
2. The Anal Stage: Occurs between first to fourth year of life. Attention
concerning pleasurable sensation moves from mouth to anus specially
during toilet training.
3. The Phallic Stage: Usually lasts only one year and occurs during the
fourth or fifth year. Genitals become the primary erogenous area. Oedipal
Complex occurs in male babies and Electra Complex occurs in female
babies.
4. Latency Stage: is free from the intense conflict or anxiety of early stages.
Lasts about age 12 or 13.
5. Genital Stage: Significant emotional and physical changes occur that are
associated with puberty. End product of this stage is well socialized adult
Criticism:
Unobservable psychosexual processes such as Id, Ego and Super
Ego are difficult to test and measure.
Although not strongly supported by research, it has been applied
many aspects of child training programs.
Social Learning Theory:
Social Learning Theory is interchangeable with behaviorism.
Theorists do not deny the existence of psychoanalytic processes but are
of the view that theory must be built on observable events and
processes.
Theory divides human behavior into two:
a. Respondent Behavior.
b. Operant Behavior.
a. Respondent Behavior: Action controlled by stimuli that precede
them and are referred as S -> R Model. Where S is the eliciting stimulus
and are stands for respondent behavior.
Example: Bright light and contraction of eyes. Smell of food and
salivation in mouth.
. Response cannot occur in the absence of eliciting stimulus. And
cannot be prevented when the appropriate stimulus is presented.
. Pavlov, the Russian physiologist (1927) discovered the process of
Classic Conditioning while studying the digestive system of dog.
 This led him to series of experiments demonstrating that other stimuli
such as sound of foot steps, ringing of a bell and sound of buzzer
could elicit the salivation response in the dog.
Higher Order Conditioning was developed by social learning theorist
by Conditioning mothers milk with unconditioned stimulus.
Respondent behavior theory is used in aversion therapy such as
irrational fears (Phobias) and inappropriate behavior.

B. Operant Behavior (BF Skinner 1959- 1969): Voluntary

behavior that the individual uses to operate on the environment and
is controlled by stimulus that follows it (R -> S).
. Stimulus that follow the response is called reinforcement or
punishment.
. Operant Behavior theory basically operates on the principle of
manipulating reinforcement or punishment to strengthen or
extinguish the behavior.
C. Modeling, Imitation and Vicarious Learning (Bandura
1969):
Modeling is a very efficient means of teaching people how to
perform a novel or new response.
Example: Highway petrol officers writing a ticket and
motorists behavior.
D. Social Exchange Theory: Its basic principle is that behavior
performed in exchange that have been profitable in the past
will increase in frequency and those form unprofitable
exchanges will decrease.
Explains social behavior in terms of mutual reinforcement with
each other.
Cognitive Theory

Theory stresses mental processes such as perception, knowledge,

ideas and expectations as the major determinants of behavior.
The processes of gathering information, giving it meaning,
organizing it into knowledge and similar mental activities are seen
as most important components of human behavior.
Existence of the mental processes ,not empirically testable, are to
be inferred from behavior that can be measured.
Theory also contends that in order to understand a persons
behavior the unit of analysis must be the individuals entire
behavior system.
The most widely discussed theories in this area are:
A. Symbolic-Interaction Theory (Herbert Mead 1939).
B. Cognitive-Consistency Theory (Heider 1946-1958).
A. Symbolic-Interaction Theory: Human social interaction of
an individual is determined by the process of his thinking,
reasoning and planning which is not possessed by other
animals.
People respond to stimuli mediated by their symbolic world.
People simultaneously live in two worlds: Symbolic and real
world.
Major Concepts: Self (I + Me)
: Significant others
: Generalized others
: Definition of the situation
B. Cognitive-Consistency Theory: Cognitions as detailed by
festinger include our perceptions --- how we perceive and code
events and experiences that occur around us --- Knowledge,
opinions, and beliefs that we hold about ourselves, about our
behavior, and about the environment.
The underlying assumption is that each individual attempts to
 Assumes that people are likely to behave in ways that minimize
the internal inconsistency among their interpersonal relations,
interpersonal cognitions, beliefs, feelings and actions.
Also assumes that inconsistency is noxious and creates pressure
to reduce or eliminate it. Has a motivational value and a major
force for attitudinal or behavioral change.
Examples: Mild Mannered, self controlled professor hitting a
student in the class.
: Man is Mortal but I will live forever.
: Smoking causes cancer and I do smoking.
Cognitive theories differ from both psychoanalytic and social
learning theories.
Example: Psychoanalytic Theory is based on studying
unconscious instincts, drives and emotions while Cognitive
Theory stands for conscious processing of variables.
Social Learning Theory stands for observable stimulus-
response and response-stimulus relationship while Cognitive
Theory focuses on transformation of information and acting
accordingly.