Social psychology is simply fascinating. With a lot of questions to answer, comes a lot of theories behind human behaviour and why we make certain decisions, judgments, or comparisons. This video is going to give you an overview of social psychology and the impact that it has had on the world. I'll be going over a brief history of social psychology, top theories, and the experiments that shaped it into what it is today. So first off, what is social psychology?
Let's start with a brief definition of social psychology. It is the study of how humans behave and interact with each other, mainly in specific situations. So psychologists in this field believe that all behaviour takes place in a social context. By looking at society's influence on the individual, we can then begin to understand the inner workings of the mind and why certain decisions are made. The recent pandemic, like many historical events, tends to bring out the good and bad in people.
You may see stories online of people selfishly giving up their time, money, or lives to help other people, but you may also see stories that show blatant disregard for the truth or even the lives of others. The decisions that we have had to make during this pandemic are largely influenced by the people around us. A young healthy person may decide to self-isolate, for example, not for themselves, but to protect the herd. And as you were cooped up in quarantine, you probably asked yourself a lot of questions about human behaviour, because I know I did. These extreme circumstances can often bring out questions about human nature and how we work together in a society.
And these big questions are not new. Social psychologists have been attempting to answer these questions for decades.
So let's go over some of the history of social psychology. The impact of society on the individual has been in the minds of psychologists and philosophers since the ancient Greeks. Aristotle, for example, emphasized the importance of a state or political community has on an individual's survival. He also believed that our language and laws separated us from other animals, and that some of these laws included everyone's different roles to create a thriving economy. But Aristotle didn't conduct experiments the way that psychologists do now.
This way of validating theories was not popular in social psychology until the late 1800s. And at this point, a few psychologists had written about the influence of society on our behaviour, but they didn't have the data to back it up. So one of the earliest experiments in social psychology as we know it today occurred in 1895. Normal Tripplett was an American psychologist at Indiana University. He conducted an experiment in which children wound up a fishing rod.
Some children completed the task alone, while others were in the presence of other children. And what he found was that the children who were among their peers were motivated to complete the task faster. And this is how the idea of social facilitation theory was born, which I actually have a video which I'll release later so make sure to hit that subscribe button. Social psychology gained popularity in the early 1900s but it really took off in the later part of the century. World Wars and the Great Depression in America raised a lot of questions about society and its influence on specific individuals. Racial prejudice also influenced the work of many social psychologists, and during the 60s and 70s, darker and more shocking experiments on human behaviour forced psychologists to look at the process in which experiments are conducted and how to ethically approach social psychology and the study has expanded well beyond America's borders.
Today, research and influence from all over the world has continued to shape social psychology and how it's approached. There's still a ton of stuff to learn. Next, let's move into the basic beliefs of social psychology. So the basic tenets of social psychology do more than just address how humans interact with each other. They also lay out how to collect data and observe people to build theories within social psychology.
So here are some of the main ideas that have shaped social psychology and remain at the core of this field. Number 1, behaviour and decision-making are largely influenced by society. Even if a decision is made privately, an individual is influenced by society. A person may not choose to steal even if no-one is looking and they know they won't get caught. They're simply influenced by the laws laid out by society.
Number 2, experiments may be conducted to back up theories. So social psychology is viewed as predictable and able to be tested. And psychologists are encouraged to test their theories multiple times and objectively measure the results to support or deny their argument. This process is evolving as psychologists discover what it truly means to be objective. In fact, some famous experiments have even been discredited due to bias from the researchers.
It's an ever evolving process. Number 3, behaviour is used to assess someone's personality and character. So you've probably heard the phrase before, actions speak louder than words. And in social psychology, actions speak very loud. A handful of theories in social psychology look at the way in which we assess other person's behaviours and how that shapes our perception of that person.
We also use these types of assessments to make judgments on our personality and character. And the interesting thing is, since we really can't know what exactly someone is thinking, we can only look at their actions. And sometimes we can ask them, but it's not completely accurate. Lastly, we have behaviour helps to reach certain goals. Yes, our society influences our behaviour and decisions, but all of these decisions are made to complete a goal.
This could be a fulfillment of a physical need or to obtain a certain status within society and these 4 basic ideas will show up again and again the more you read about social psychology and specifically their most famous theories and experiments. Speaking of theories, let's get on to some of the most notable theories and names in social psychology.
So the first one I'm going to bring up is something called attribution theory. So why did your best friend lie to you? Or why did you cut that guy off in traffic? And why does a billionaire abandon their riches for a more spartan lifestyle? Every day, you are faced with hundreds of decisions.
You make some of these decisions alone. Some of them you make in front of other people. And sometimes, you observe the behaviours of others and make judgments as to why they made their decisions. Attribution theory looks at the way that we observe other people and explain how someone else made their decisions. See, as humans we are meaning making creatures.
We want to understand why someone made specific decisions or what factors they took in to contribute to their behaviour. So the 2 main categories within attribution theory include external factors, things like money, the weather, what they're wearing, or internal factors, things like their personal beliefs or insecurities. So in short attribution theory looks to explain how we perceive other people whenever they make decisions. Next up we have something called self perception theory. So attribution looks at the way that we observe and make judgments about the behaviour of others but self perception theory looks at the way that we observe and make judgments about our own behaviour and the way that we perceive ourselves is very crucial to the goals that we think we can achieve, our mental health, and actually how our life plays out.
Next up, we have something called social identity theory. So you may look at yourself and see someone who's funny, accomplished, and courageous. But, you may also see a student, or an actor, someone who lives in New York. And because of this, you might identify as a New Yorker, a student, or an actor. And your identity as that may influence the way that you make your decisions, or how you present yourself to others.
This is what social identity theory is all about. This theory looks at the process in which people categorize themselves and other people. We often see people in in-groups or out-groups, and depending on your own position, you may see people who are similar to you in one light and people that are different than you in another light. Next up, we have something called cognitive dissonance theory. So when groups of people interact, there are bound to be differing opinions.
But what happens when we learn new information that contradicts information we already know? The cognitive dissonance theory says that this conflict can be very hard for people to bear. In fact, some psychologists think it causes anxiety. Our minds have trouble accepting and processing this conflicting information. Often, if we're not aware of this discomfort, we just throw away the new information and stick to our gut.
And trust me, we see this play out while talking politics at the dinner table or sharing articles on social media all the time. People just want to continue believing what they believe. One last topic and theory I want to explain is evolutionary psychology. So, why do we perceive people in a certain way? Is it due to the culture that we grew up in, or could our perceptions, our language, and our social interactions be just a result of evolution?
And that's the question that evolutionary psychology attempts to answer. This approach to psychology has been around since the late 1800s. Charles Darwin's idea of something called natural selection largely influenced evolutionary psychology. And while it's mainly sat on the fringes of psychology world since, evolutionary psychology is becoming more mainstream. This goes to show that while some ideas within social psychology seem timeless, others will gain and lose popularity.
So the 5 theories I've mentioned are just a small piece of social psychology. There's a few other theories and ideas which include social learning theory, cognitive biases, schemas, social comparison and social exchange theory, something called the triangular theory of love, and you can't forget about something called the bystander effect.
So social psychology doesn't just look at why humans make good decisions and follow the rules, because many of these theories and experiments in this field attempt to answer the questions about why humans do bad things. Many of social psychology's most notable or notorious experiments happened in the years after World War II. How could humans commit such atrocities? How can we prevent the attitudes and behaviours that led to the rise of Nazism? Well, some of these famous experiments I'm going to go over really quick.
If you've seen some of my other videos, you may actually be familiar with these experiments and the impact that they've had on the world of psychology. So first up is something called the Bobo doll experiment. And this is actually one of the most famous experiments in all of psychology that helped to form something called the social learning theory. So the Bobo doll experiment placed children in a room with an adult, an inflatable Bobo doll and other toys and other things that they could play with. Some of these adults acted aggressively towards this doll while others left it alone or maybe were gentle with it.
Psychologists found that the children who observed the adults being aggressive were also more likely to be aggressive themselves, and what this did is it showed that children can learn by modelling or observing other people's behaviours. Next we have the famous Stanford Prison Experiment. The Stanford Prison Experiment may be the most notorious of all. In fact, you can actually watch a movie about it on Netflix. The experiment placed college-aged boys in a simulation prison, while half of the group were role-playing as guards and the other half role-playing as inmates.
Very quickly the guards and inmates took to the roles and both of these roles became violent and the experiment was actually put to a halt only after 6 days. This experiment attempted to show how quickly labels and roles can affect a person, even if just in a simulation. Another very famous experiment is the Milgram experiment. So why do we make questionable decisions? Sometimes, it's just because we're following orders.
We're doing what we're told. And in the 1960s, Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment in which people were instructed to deliver electric shocks to participants, which they didn't know but they were actually actors. And these shocks were as high as 450 volts. But the researchers instructed the participants to give the shocks. Surprisingly, a lot of participants actually delivered the shocks.
Even if they felt uncomfortable about it, they still followed orders. Milgram's experiment, like the Stanford Prison Experiment, goes down as another notorious and potentially damaging experiment to the participants issuing the shocks. But, it does offer an explanation for why people may commit crimes or make other unethical decisions. And, as I near the end of this video, you should know this is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more to the scientific field that we call social psychology.
After all, it's been discussed since the days of Aristotle. This field will continue to evolve, especially as the world faces new challenges and creates new technology. Social media, for example, is at the core of many social psychology studies. 30 years ago, though, social media wasn't even a term.
So take the time to learn the basics of social psychology and build yourself a library of knowledge on how society impacts individuals. You may learn something about yourself, your culture, or how the people around you view the world. I really hoped you guys liked this introductory video on the social psychology and I plan on producing a bunch more videos on specific social psychology topics. So hit the subscribe button if you're not already subscribed and leave any questions or maybe video ideas down below in the comments. Thank you so much for watching this, and I hope to see you in the next one!
What is Social Psychology? An Introduction video
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